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The Algonquin
America, at the time of
its discovery by Europeans, was peopled by a race whose origin has ever
remained a matter of conjecture; whence they came and their relationship,
if any, to other peoples who then occupied or had occupied other portions
of the known world has remained one of the unsolved problems of the race;
nor is it of any particular interest except as an abstract question of
ethnology whether they were the descendents of the lost tribes of Israel
or of the Hykso, or Shepherd Kings of Egypt, or of the Tyrian, each of
which had played its part in the drama of life and disappeared from the
stage. Whether they had in some remote period crossed from the Eastern
hemisphere, or were indigenous to the soil are problems that arouse the
interest of the student of sociology, because they raise the question
whether the Indians of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries had relapsed
into a state of at least semi-barbarism from the civilization of Europe,
Asia and Northern Africa as developed centuries before, or had advanced by
glow stages from the more complete barbarism of primitive men.
For the purpose of this work, we will take them as they
were, leaving the problem of their origin and development to be discussed,
or further discussed, by scientists in the hope that, as matter of
abstract knowledge, the wisdom of future ages may penetrate the veil.
Taking them as the Europeans found them, ethnologists tell us that the
territory now included within the bounds of the United States, excluding
Alaska and the islands of the seas, was occupied by seven distinct
families, three of which, the
Algonquin,
Iroquois and
Appalachian,
sometimes called the
Mobilian, were east of the Mississippi River.
As our interest at this time is limited to those tribes
located in Southern New England, I shall not make further reference to the
latter group which lay south of the Carolinas, nor to the Iroquois except
to call attention to their activities, as those activities affected the
Algonquin tribes located along the shores of the rivers, lakes and sea and
in the forest fastnesses of New England.
Of the Iroquois, or Hodenosaunee, as they called
themselves, the Five Nations of New York were the dominant league, and
eventually, being joined by a sixth, thus making them the six nations, as
they are frequently called, they overcame and absorbed the other tribes of
their own race; and so in later times the six nations and Iroquois became
almost identical in meaning. The original five nations were the
Mohawks,
Oneidas,
Onondagas, Cayuga and
Seneca. The
Tuscarora had at some earlier
time broken away and settled on the coast and streams of the Carolinas,
where they maintained themselves against the hostile attacks of
Algonquin and Appalachians for generations, but were eventually reunited
with their ancient brethren. The subjugated Iroquois tribes, the remnants
of which were absorbed by the five nations, were the
Hurons or
Wyandots,
Eries and Andaste. Whence they came, to have thus settled themselves in
the limited territory they occupied, entirely surrounded by Algonquin,
is uncertain. They themselves have three traditions concerning the matter,
one of which tells us that they came from the north, another that they
came from the west, and the third that they sprang from the soil of New
York State.
The totemic clan seems to have been more highly
developed among them than among the Algonquin, the several tribes,
independently of their tribal relations, being united in eight such clans,
the members of which were bound together by ties stronger than those of
tribal relationship, intermarriage between members of the same clan being
prohibited, though allowed between members of the same tribe but of
different clans.
Francis Parkman, Jr., than whom no historian has taken
greater pains to secure absolute accuracy, says of them: "They extended
their conquests and their depredations from Quebec to the Carolinas, and
from the Western prairies to the forests of Maine. On the South they
forced tribute from the subjugated Delawares and pierced the mountain
fastnesses of the Cherokees with incessant forays. On the North they
uprooted the ancient settlement of the Wyandot, on the West
they exterminated the Erie and the Andaste, and spread havoc and dismay
around the tribes of the Illinois; and on the East the Indians of New
England fled at the first peal of the Mohawk War Cry. Their war parties
roamed over half America, and their name was a terror from the Atlantic to
the Mississippi; but when we ask the numerical strength of the dreaded
confederacy, when we discover that, in the days of their greatest
triumphs, their united cantons could not have mustered four thousand
warriors, we stand amazed at the folly and dissension which left so vast a
region the prey of a handful of bold marauders."
From this it is readily seen that they were a warlike
people, dreaded by the Algonquin everywhere, by whom they seem to be
known simply as Mohawks, this being perhaps the dominant tribe in the
league. The period of their greatest triumph appears to have been from
1649 to 1672, for it was then that they subjugated their own kindred
tribes, the Hurons, Erie and Andaste, and overran the
Delawares.
One of the peculiar customs of the Iroquois is worth a
word in passing, and that is the rule of descent through the female line;
that is, a chief's brother, sister or sister's children succeeded to the
chieftaincy rather than his own or his brother's children, the reason
being that by no inconstancy on the part of the wife of a chief or of his
mother or sisters, was it possible that his brother, sister or sister's
children should not be of his own family, even if only through the mother, while the children of
his wife or of his brother's wife might be no relation to him.
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